Warren Buffett entered the USD 100 billion club on Wednesday when shares of his company hit a record high at over USD 400,000 apiece. He has thus become the sixth member of the USD 100 billion club, which includes billionaires Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Bill Gates among others.
Berkshire Hathaway’s shares are up 15 per cent this year, with the Class A shares climbing to USD 407,750 on Wednesday before closing the day at USD 398,840. The Class B shares were selling for a much more affordable price of USD 263.99.
Even with the COVID-19 pandemic weighing on many of Berkshire’s businesses, the company reported a USD 35.8 billion fourth-quarter profit, largely due to paper gains on the value of its investments.
The Omaha billionaire-investor was once the world’s richest man, but has fallen back to No.5 in Forbes magazine’s current list of the world’s richest people.
In 2020, Buffett spent a record USD 24.7 billion on buybacks and filings indicate he’s already bought at least USD 4.2 billion worth of stock through mid-February.
However, it is estimated that his wealth would have been close to USD 200 billion today if he hadn’t been giving away large blocks of his stock to charity. A co-founder of the Giving Pledge, a campaign to encourage billionaire philanthropy, the 90-year-old has donated more than USD 37 billion in Berkshire stock since 2006. He has also been contributing annually to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The distribution of wealth has been staggeringly disproportionate as millions of working-class and minority people remain unemployed, but the rich have seen incomes and net worth levels rise thanks to a buoyant stock market and rising home prices.
(With inputs from agencies)